Bob Herbert: The Howls of a Fading Species

[babylonsister]

The Howls of a Fading Species

By BOB HERBERT
Published: June 1, 2009


One can only hope that the hysterical howling of right-wingers against the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court is something approaching a death rattle for this profoundly destructive force in American life.

It’s hard to fathom the heights of hypocrisy currently being scaled by the foaming-in-the-mouth crazies who are leading the charge against the nomination. Newt Gingrich, who never needed a factual basis for his ravings, rants on Twitter that Judge Sotomayor is a “Latina woman racist,” apparently unaware of his incoherence in the “Latina-woman” redundancy in this defamatory characterization.

Karl Rove sneered that Ms. Sotomayor was “not necessarily” smart, thus managing to get the toxic issue of intelligence into play in the case of a woman who graduated summa cum laude from Princeton, went on to get a law degree from Yale and has more experience as a judge than any of the current justices had at the time of their nominations to the court.

It turns the stomach. There is no level of achievement sufficient to escape the stultifying bonds of bigotry. It is impossible to be smart enough or accomplished enough.

The amount of disrespect that has spattered the nomination of Judge Sotomayor is disgusting. She is spoken of, in some circles, as if she were the lowest of the low. Rush Limbaugh — now there’s a genius! — has compared her nomination to a hypothetical nomination of David Duke, a former head of the Ku Klux Klan. “How can a president nominate such a candidate?” Limbaugh asked.

Ms. Sotomayor is a member of the National Council of La Raza, the Hispanic civil rights organization. In the crazy perspective of some right-wingers, the mere existence of La Raza should make decent people run for cover. La Raza is “a Latino K.K.K. without the hoods and the nooses,” said Tom Tancredo, a Republican former congressman from Colorado.

Here’s the thing. Suddenly these hideously pompous and self-righteous white males of the right are all concerned about racism. They’re so concerned that they’re fully capable of finding it in places where it doesn’t for a moment exist. Not just finding it, but being outraged by it to the point of apoplexy. Oh, they tell us, this racism is a bad thing!

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/02/opinion/02herbert.html?ref=opinion

[boobooday]

1. "KKK without the hoods and nooses"

and the murdering rampages, and denial of civil rights to others based on race . . . etc.

These people truly live in bizarro world. It's only getting more and more bizarre as it gets smaller and smaller and smaller.

[demigoddess]

2. Rush-this is the guy who said that no democrat should be elected to any position

not even dogcatcher. That was his goal. The Supreme Court is considered even more important to over throw Roe v Wade and to keep democrats corraled in so they cannot do anything while in office.

[imdjh]

3. I hate poorly written work, regardless of objective.

We’ve heard ad nauseam Ms. Sotomayor’s comments — awkwardly stated but hardly racist — about what she brings to the bench as a Latina. But how often have we ever heard the awful, hateful position on race offered up by William F. Buckley,

William F Buckley is not nominated for the Supreme Court, and while his being dead wouldn't necessarily preclude him from the bench, his statements in public would.

Sorry, I don't like the jumping through hoops routine. It doesn't take much to sink a nominee, and I don't think that Sotomayor is sunk, but I also don't think that this article with its false corollaries is going to work in the way intended. You can't drag all that shit out without sounding like a child, or a childish adult. Even touchy feeley family counselors will tell you that the way to argue is to stay in the present, not to drag out the "you always" statements.

He downplays her politically inept remark as "awkward" and the goes on to make one of his own. We're supposed to take him at his word that he was only referring to select white men, rather than "those people". Sorry, not buying it. He is essentially saying that discrimination against white people doesn't exist and even if it does then it doesn't matter because turnabout is fair play. Fuck that. The firefighter decision was wrong, there is no dancing around it. But every judge has made a ruling or three that we don't agree with. Sotomayor's defense is in pointing to those cases where she has shown brilliance, objectivity, and expertise. But we don't know what those cases are because her defenders are too busy trying to wrap a mistake in bullshit instead of promoting her qualities.

[babylonsister]

4. Yea, Herbert's a real slouch.

:eyes:

[imdjh]

5. Is "roll eyes" you way of saying that you don't like what I said but have no argument?

Or is it your way of saying that because Herbert has a couple of awards that he's above criticism?